Bobby Collins named new UMES men's basketball coach

PRINCESS ANNE, MD – (April 8, 2014) – Bobby Collins, who leads men’s college basketball
teams to conference championships and national tournament appearances, will be
the next head coach at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

Collins, 48, comes to Princess Anne from Winston-Salem State
University in North Carolina, where he was named head coach in 2006. His last
four Ram teams averaged nearly 20 wins per season and qualified for the NCAA
Division II tournament in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

“It feels like I’m coming home, professionally,” Collins said. “I’m
looking forward to the challenge of re-engaging with some of my old friends and
rivals in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.”

Collins is no stranger to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Before
taking the Winston-Salem State job, he was head coach for four years at Hampton
(Va.) University, where he was MEAC’s 2005 coach of the year. His team won the
conference tournament the following season, earning an automatic bid to the
NCAA tournament.

“The university has an opportunity to hire an outstanding coach. He’s
an even finer person,” UMES athletics director Keith Davidson said. “He has a
proven record of success at his previous institutions.”

Collins was Hampton’s assistant head coach in 2001 when the 15th-seeded
Pirates pulled off one of the most memorable upsets in NCAA tournament history,
defeating the 2nd-seeded Iowa State Cyclones. Two years later, he
was promoted to the head coaching position at Hampton and established a school
record for most wins by a first-year coach.

“He’s had great coaching experiences where he’s worked previously,”
Davidson said. “He’s an excellent recruiter who has great relationships with
players and we believe he’s the right person for our program.”

The university and Collins agreed to a four-year contract with a base
salary of $135,000.

Collins teaches an offense that puts a high value on fast-break
scoring and he believes in employing man-to-man defense roughly two thirds of
the time.

He told the UMES search committee he expects his players to be “the
hardest working team in the country,” and to follow a strict code of conduct
off the court, including taking caps off when indoors and when traveling.

“We are excited that Coach Collins has accepted the opportunity to
lead our men’s basketball program,” President Juliette B. Bell said. “He has
demonstrated that he is a proven winner and a role model when it comes to
guiding student-athletes on and off the court. The University of Maryland Eastern
Shore and its Hawk Nation welcome him to our ‘nest.’”

In his 12 years as a head coach at two universities, Collins has
compiled a 181-171 record, including his first three years at Winston-Salem
State when he was trying to position the basketball program to compete at the
Division 1 level. He scheduled road games against the likes of Georgetown,
Notre Dame, Kansas and cross-town neighbor, Wake Forest of the Atlantic Coast
Conference.

Collins graduated from Eastern Kentucky University in 1991 with a bachelor's
degree in business administration and management, and was a four-year letterman
on the Colonels’ basketball team. He was selected to the Ohio Valley Conference
All-Freshmen team and was Honorable Mention All-Conference as a senior. After
college, he played in the Helsinki, Finland Classic (tournament), earning MVP
honors.

Collins was as an admissions counselor at his alma mater from 1992 to
1994 before joining the Old Dominion University basketball program as a
restricted earnings coach.

He was on the Monarchs’ bench in 1995 when the Colonial Athletic
Association champions shocked Villanova University during a first-round win in
the NCAA basketball tournament.

Collins, the youngest of 10 siblings, is the son of two
non-denominational ministers. He grew up in Southern Pines, N.C., where he
graduated from Pinecrest High School and helped his team to 18-5 and 20-4
records during his junior and senior years. In 1984, he earned All-State honors
and was conference Player of the Year.